Thursday, March 30

Forty years after the original ceremony, this Chinese couple got the wedding pictures that never happened.

You know how sometimes life’s opportunities stroll by us and we are powerless or incapable to grab them?

That is exactly what happened with Chang Benfu and his wife Zhao Xuefang married back in 1976.

The husband and wife from Mihzi County in China’s Shaanxi province are 84 and 83 respectively and have been married for 40 over years but never got wedding pictures because they could not afford it back then.

“We had nothing at all and we had just got married,” says Chang.

As fate would have it, a second chance was eventually granted to the couple when a group of young students offered to take the wedding photos after hearing the couple’s story.

Chang and his wife Zhao radiated happiness as they posed for some modest but elegant shots at their home.

The photos are were centered around the old lovers’ day-to-day lives in rural China, with a wedding gown and bouquet of pink flowers for Zhao and a denim jacket for Chang adding some more colour to the brightness of their smiles.

The couple have eight children, while their extended family, including great-grandchildren, includes a large number of 53 persons.